by Sara Hanover
I hoped.
Being on the other side, it seemed impossible to tell. I couldn’t be sure until we passed a loving couple on the walkway, immersed in each other and laughing in that intimate way people in a relationship talk to each other, and they didn’t notice us at all. Or the rain.
Of course, that could just have been being in love.
I took a moment to text Evie.
We walked each other across Silverbranch to the parking lot where I opened the car door and shoved both Goldie and the suit coat into the back seat. It wavered for a moment, but I pointed at it and said, “Stay.”
It did. I couldn’t see either of them at all, but could feel the car bounce a little as she settled on the rear seat. Evelyn came running up, her clue to hurry because I had the car started and in gear. She threw herself in.
“What is it?”
“A little trouble, nothing serious, but I might have accidently assaulted one of their professors.”
“What???” She let out a screech to match the squeal the tires made as we left.
“It was him or me.”
“Really? What happened? One of those sexual advance things?”
“No, more like a field hockey hit gone wrong.”
She winced.
“He caught it in the head.”
“Caught what?”
“One of those nice stepping stones on the path. That’s what I get for showing off my athletic skills.”
“Oh, jeez, Tessa. Are you sure you didn’t kill him?”
From the manic glare in Maxwell Parker’s eyes as he struggled to get loose, I was pretty sure I hadn’t. She reached over to pat my knee. “You probably didn’t.”
“Thanks.”
“De nada.” Evelyn paused, and her breath slowed. Then she said, “There are two, darkened by cloaks, hidden by shadows—you think they are one and the same, but they are not. An abyss separates them. Choose well.”
Goldie gave a strangled sound from the back seat as I sat up straight on the driver’s side. “Evie?”
Silence.
“Evie, are you all right?” I wondered if the students of Silverbranch had put a hex on her or something.
She shook her head then and answered, “My hair is going to frizz something awful by the time we get home!”
And then all of us sank into our thoughts as the rain got serious and noisy. What had she been gibbering about, and was it serious? Because she didn’t seem to be all there when she’d said it. I wondered if the Society had reached through her to threaten us and decided things were bad enough from time to time without imagining worse.
* * *
• • •
We made good time getting away from Silverbranch and caught up with the leading edge of the squall. I put the headlights on, but they did a poor job of cutting through the dark curtain of advancing night and pounding rain. Evelyn shivered. “Got any heat in this thing?”
“Sure.” I eyed the dashboard. “Somewhere.”
I’d taken my eyes off the road. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have seen the small dead things falling along with the rain. But I did. My heart skipped a beat. I did hear the profound silence of nothing but the wind howling and the rain pelting the ground, and the car schussing through the growing puddles. It fishtailed as we hit unexpected slush and maybe a patch of ice.
The car drifted in answer to my pull at the steering wheel and I jammed my foot on the brakes. I tried to counter the movement, remembering centrifugal forces and those driving movies that were mandatory viewing, but none of my efforts helped. A huge tree keeled over right in front of us, branches thrashing and immense roots going bottoms up. Evelyn made a tiny squeak deep in her throat, and someone muttered, “Athena have mercy” from the back of the car.
No mercy to be found. I wrenched the steering wheel about. The car skewed around in a circle and then accelerated in the opposite direction, directly at the massive tree blocking the road. I had a moment to wonder if we had working air bags and if Goldie had buckled in, when the car spun around yet again. My wrists weren’t strong enough to keep the steering wheel straight, and I felt as if we’d been jolted into a bumper car ride with no control. About then, I decided this was no ordinary skid. Solid shadows assailed the car, and the headlights died out without even a flicker. Then the car itself quit as it hit the fallen tree, hard.
My door popped open as if it had never been latched, seat belt snapping loose, pitching me into the rain and onto the road, and I lay there for three seconds to catch my breath.
Then something truly immense leaned out of the tree toward me. It was darker than the night and the storm, as if it were the thing that swallowed all universes and suns. My feet, still hung up inside the car, caught on my backpack strap, and as I flipped over to crawl away, I dragged my pack with me. Before I could free myself and get to my feet, the thing in the night took me by the elbow, jumped me to my feet, and kicked the tree off the road. My little car rolled into a small ditch at the side, and I heard nothing from either Goldie or Evelyn.
The nightmare holding onto me shrank to almost human size.
Malender leaned into my face and said, “We need to talk.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHO’S ON FIRST
MALENDER TOOK MY breath away, his leather and lace like a cavalier from centuries gone, and his eyes a rich, deep, jade color set off by curling sable lashes. They weren’t emeralds, but something smokier and deeper and far more mysterious. Rain glistened off his so-black-it-shone-purple hair, and he had never been baked, tanned, or wrinkled by the sun. Moonlight illuminated him, as the streetlights had not the last time I’d seen him, and I soaked in his beauty. I would want him to the ends of the earth if he were not encased in a boiling, oily, and distasteful cloud. Or if people would stop saying terrible things about him in warning. Or if Carter Phillips did not exist.
And then, because my brain seemed to be spinning, I remembered seeing him with blue eyes and no cloud. How had I not remembered his green eyes? Did they change color according to his mood? Or had it truly been him? Had Joanna’s master been someone entirely different who knew how to mimic Malender? Who would dare such a thing?
Goldie climbed out of the backseat, Steptoe’s coat peeling off her as she did, and it gave an eerie note to her appearing out of thin air. She swayed a bit as she stood, and then her eyes widened. “You!” She jabbed a finger at Malender.
I edged in front of her. “Take it easy, Goldie.”
She put her hand on my shoulder, turning me out of harm’s way, and I could feel her wings flutter. “He is not to be trusted, or trifled with, or ignored. You have no idea what you are dealing with.”
Oh, I had some small idea, but as soon as Goldie and I could have some private time, I intended to find out what she knew about tall, dark, and awesome.
He curled a lip and pointed right back at her. “Do not meddle where you have not been invited.”
“I may not remember your weak spot, but I—”
Malender snarled a word, and Goldie was jerked off her feet and stuffed back into my car. The door slammed after her.
“You didn’t . . .”
Malender’s attention swung back to me. “A lesson for those who would interfere with me.”
“She’s not . . .”
“Of course not. Would I stuff a dead body into your vehicle?”
“The thought did occur to me.”
“You do have some self-preservation sense, then.”
Evidently, only just enough. I gathered up my backpack and clutched it to my side, struggling for a breath because I suddenly could not quite breathe. With his free hand, Malender waved a bubble around us, separating us from the real world and all that it contained, but everything around us grew intense: sight, smell, sound. He smelled like cedar and leather; the oily substance had no scent at all but it ga
thered at the back of my throat as though it would pool there to choke me, and I could hear my heart beating loudly. I cleared my throat in rapid succession, but nothing rid me of the greasy stuff although I noticed the cloud seemed far less encompassing than it had been, almost as if Malender had found a way to outrun or dissipate it. It wasn’t at all like the nasty cloud of the glop that took Steptoe out, but just as bad in a different way. I thought I’d gag in front of this beautiful being, so I clamped my lips shut and tried to think of other things. Like, why was he holding me by the back of my neck, a foot off the ground? I stabbed a finger downward.
He slowly lowered me and let go.
“Do your eyes change color? And is that cloud like a cloak, sometimes here and sometimes not?”
His jade gaze narrowed at me. “No. But when I said we had to talk, I envisioned myself doing the talking and you listening, to provide an answer now and then.”
“I thought I had something important to say, but—” I managed a smile. “Sure. What do you want to talk about?”
“You are stirring things about which you know nothing.”
“Your little plots or someone else’s? And if I am screwing around in yours, I might remind you that I have friends and tend to help them when they have problems.”
“Friends would not lead you into trouble.”
“Sometimes they don’t have any choice—none of us do, if there’s a difficulty.” I looked him up and down and could not quite contain the smile that pulled the corner of my mouth. “And, mister, if anyone looks like trouble, you do.”
His nostrils flared ever so slightly. “You are a child.” The cedar smell grew sharper, as if tied to his temper.
“By your standards, we are all barely more than a second old, I’m sure. I don’t function by your standards. You take care of friends if you can. Out there, somewhere, is a little car with one of mine in it. I don’t know if she’s hurt or safe, and I’m not happy to be standing here with you in this—” I circled my hand around.
“If you wish to stand in the rain, I can arrange it.” The bubble opened up, and the storm flowed in as though I stood under Niagara Falls, drenching me immediately. He, of course, stayed high and dry.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
He looked almost happy, so I decided I wouldn’t complain. I fiddled with my jacket and brought out the aforementioned hood Evie had told me about again. My hands brushed over the backpack bulge of the ginormous salt container I hauled around every single day, just for contingencies like this. I decided I wanted to hear a bit more of what he had to say before resorting to drastic measures.
“So. I’ve irritated you enough that you must want me to stop doing something, but I can’t if I don’t know exactly what it is. I’ve got a full plate right now. What portion are you suggesting I dump down the garbage disposal?”
“What a quaint way of putting it.” He waggled a few fingers, and I got dry head to toe, but the pelting storm didn’t stop, of course, and I quickly got just as wet all over again. A distinctly amused twinkle settled in his jade eyes.
“I’m not going to abandon my family and my people.”
“I’m not suggesting you abandon them, precisely. Perhaps guiding them would be more accurate.”
“Oh. You want me to push them over a cliff you might be suggesting?”
“Nothing that harsh.”
“What then, and who?” I shook inside my jacket, rather like a wet dog shakes, vigorously, and just happened to soak Malender as well. “Not that I’ll take your advice, but I’d like to know what’s up.” I listened in vain for a siren, indicating that help of some kind might be headed the way of my little car and its occupants. Tired of Malender’s little lather, rinse, and repeat exercise, I held my maelstrom hand up over my head, Immediately, its shield covered me, keeping the wet out and bringing a comfortable warmth in.
A flicker of surprise went through his eyes. Had he not noticed this before? I could have sworn he did when Joanna attacked me. Didn’t we discuss the shield work? Yes, we had. But I don’t think I’d told him there were other attributes I had begun exploring. Perhaps not. And even more perturbing, it might not have been him I’d even talked to, in which case, I’d just done something very stupid by exposing the maelstrom to him and whoever the not-him might have been. Both of them. If there were two of them. My thoughts boggled a bit, and I hesitated about keeping the shield up. But neither did I want to catch my death of cold.
“You were saying?”
He moved a pace, as if getting me centered in his sights. “You’re not magical. No, that’s not correct. Few people are as magical these days as they were centuries and centuries ago, so you might have a dash or two in you, but strictly speaking, you’re not magical.”
The words stung, but I didn’t want to let him see that. I made a face. “And proud of it. I do things the hard way.”
“Oh, magic isn’t easy. Far from it. But even though you’re not magical, you reek of it as if you waded in it every single day. You attract it.”
I flashed my palm at him, adding, “Hello, I have the stone, and I live with a late, great wizard.”
“If they were onions, I could smell them on you.” Malender took a step forward, seriously invading my personal space, and I fought to not step away. He was trying me, and I knew it. “But they are not. Still, there is that in you that attracted them.”
“Returning to . . . people need friends.”
“Professor Brandard had a world full of friends. He turned his back on them.”
I thought of Morty. “Not all.”
“Enough that, in these days, in this place, he needs all he can find.”
“We all do.”
“Do you speak excuses for him?”
“Actually, I thought I was speaking truth to power.”
Malender laughed lightly. “Not with Brandard. I think more of you than that. You have a very good idea of who he is and how he operates.”
“The professor is a crusty old dragon who has had his hoard greatly disturbed, and he doesn’t like it. Nor does he particularly care for visitors treading upon his grounds, but he knows he’s been mortally wounded and that he needs help and he accepts it.”
“Well.”
That stunned Malender quiet for long enough that I wondered if the prof actually could be an old dragon. I stood, arm raised and hand over my head, and also wondered how much longer I could hold the pose. “So I take it that he is one of the people you want me to step away from? I won’t do it, but it would help if you could be a little more definite about it.”
“The professor needs to come to me if he wants to solve his problem.”
“You?”
“Me.”
I shut my mouth carefully, gathering my thoughts. “Oh-kay. You want me to pass that along?”
“I do.”
“Why don’t you approach him yourself?”
“He’s still rather fortified. It would set off a draining and senseless struggle. Also, it occurred to me that the message might mean more if he trusted the messenger.” Malender leaned a shoulder against something that I couldn’t see and disconcerted me as I waited for him to go off-balance or fall and, of course, he didn’t. “He would be wise to want my help.”
“And what could you do for him?”
“Brandard and I come from similar roots, though mine are much more powerful than his. Still, I understand him, and if you could reach the old man inside the young one, he might tell you the same. We have dueled much, in the past, oft on the same side and oft against one another. He remembers me.”
No kidding. He warned me against Malender. I don’t think his memories were as touching as Malender thought, similar origins or not.
“You’re a phoenix wizard.”
“Oh, no.” Malender smiled briefly. “I am the Fire
.”
That explained a bit. None of it sounded the least bit persuasive, though.
Malender pressed. “If you tell him I intend to help, he might listen.”
“Might is the operative word here. What’s it going to cost?”
“That’s between me and Brandard.”
“Now, see. You want me to offer a bargain, but you won’t tell me the terms.”
“What we negotiate you would never understand nor need to know.”
I tilted my head. “I don’t understand life, death, and the weight of a soul?”
“My price should not be that dramatic.”
“Then you’re shortchanging yourself, because while Brian looks like a nice, easygoing surfer dude, the professor is all piss and vinegar and hard to get along with. Anything you partner with him to do is going to be difficult. Just a warning.”
He put his hand to his chest. “You’re worried about me? I’m touched.”
“I’m worried about the east coast because, if the two of you tangle, I’m thinking we’re all dust.”
“Hmmmm.” He still looked pleased. And unbearably handsome.
“Anyone else you want me to offer a deal to?”
“No, but you should walk away from Steptoe and the Iron Dwarves and Silverbranch.”
I counted on my free fingers. “I can keep Evelyn.”
His nose wrinkled slightly. “If you can bear her. She is more in the realm of a— What would you call her?”
“Sometimes a bestie and sometimes a frenemy. She’s fluid that way.” A pang went through me at assessing Evelyn so harshly, but I didn’t want Mal to notice her too closely. I thought of my words as camouflage over her true value to me.
He shrugged. “That is a world I do not understand. It’s your choice.”
I straightened. “I have news for you, Malender. It’s all my choice. I have no intentions of leaving any of them behind for any reason, and most certainly not because you suggested it. I trust them, and I don’t trust you.”